For the rich guys and for the poor guys. As a bonus, you don't have to hang your in shame saying you run a "Unix-like" operating system. With these, you get the real thing...
If you think Slashdot is intended to be a non-partisan news site you obviously don't read it very much. "News for nerds, stuff that matters."
I really thought it was. If I wanted to discuss politics rather than technology, I would head over to the many extreme political discussion sites. Cheap pot shots on political leaders is best suited for those forums. Whether you are talking about the Impeached One or Chimpy.
If you're looking for Bible-belt sensibilities you're at the wrong site, mister.
I am a Catholic living in NYC...the complete opposite of a Baptist in Georgia. "We got them thespians livin' up har!".
The Bush administration is pursuing the Microsoft case much less strenuously than the Clinton administration did. This is fact.
So? There are some of us that think that breaking up one monopoly to create two or three other monopolies isn't going to solve the problem. Pretty much the solution being bounced around during the Clinton years. I am for competition in the marketplace. I use Mac OS X because of that -- outside the fact its better than Windows. Microsoft can be beat easily by better products and its happening. Apache creams IIS. I am sure you can come up with other product match ups.
The Bush administration accepted substantial donations from Microsoft. This is fact. Chrisd has a right to believe the administration was "bought" by Microsoft whether it's fact or not.
And Al Gore tooled around on Microsoft's campus and took donations as well and according to posters in this forum, more than Bush took in. What a news flash, a company betting on both teams. If Chrisd thinks that a single company can buy a Republican President in front of a liberal media, he's welcome to make the silly claim...just try to put it in the forum instead of the news summary. Its such a waste of time in the summary to divert the story from the real thrust.
Or I'm sorry, should we delete the story because "toupsie" disagrees????
Well if I were the owner of Slashdot, I would run things different. Guess what, I ain't and don't pretend too. I have no problem with the story. Its perfect for this forum, technology and the law. But throwing out hyperbole in the story brief is not necessary, it will come from people just like you. That's what's great about Slashdot as a forum. You throw out the story, don't taint it and let everyone else color the information then the moderators screw it up or enhance it.
Would you like us to file the tits off the Statue of Liberty while we're at it or do we have your permission to let them stay?
I guess is this lame attack on Attorney General John Ashcroft transferred on me. Ha ha! Let me give you a ticket on the political clue train. The fact that John Ashcroft has a problem with a nude statue behind him is not bizarre. When did you see Janet Reno stand in front of a statue of a nude man with a thick, flaccid, exposed "chubby" and conduct a news conference? Hillary Clinton has never stood in front of such of a statue nor can I recount a time where I have observed a female politician or major government employee do such a thing. The man has a restrained sense of public decorum when it comes to nudity. So do many women. In this day and age of in your face hypersexuality bombarded at us from the media and previous politicians, its nice to see a member of our Government acting like someone beyond a high school level of sexual maturity.
Of course all rambus has to do now is buy a president to get out from under this.
Uh, excuse me? What does President George W. Bush have to with RAMBUS much less the Microsoft case from this link? President Bush appointed the first African American, Charles James, to head the antitrust division of the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General Charles James never has said that Microsoft should get away scott free, he just disagrees with breaking up Microsoft into two monopolies from one. His solution is to penalize Microsoft and force them to adopt different business practices that would remove barriers to competition from outside companies on their operating system.
There is no need for these sort of comments on Slashdot story briefs. AAG Charles James has a long history of serving this country through its court system and to have a partisan sniper misrepresent his opinion in such a blatant fashion is repugnant. I don't know if its racism or just pure hatred towards the current administration that would allow this sort of misrepresentation to be published. It would be nice if Slashdot editors would review these submissions before they are posted and depolitise them.
How are we geeks supposed to maintain any self-esteem unless we can pick on someone else the way that we were picked on at high-school?
Gee, I didn't know that still bothered you as an adult. I am really sorry I scarred you life. But I figured you were able to get that toilet bowl cleaner off your face easy when we gave you that "Whirlie" so you really didn't mind. I didn't know it would lead to you picking on Walmart shoppers.
People these days can't seem to function w/o them. I don't see the need to be in touch w/people 24/7. I like the fact that people can't reach me when I am not at home. In fact, even when I am at home they can't reach me. CallerID owns. I use it for my answering machine as well.
Ditto! I do the exact same thing. And here I was thinking I was the only person doing this. There are just too people out there and too few of me to deal with them.:)
I have that technology. It's called, "I don't own a cell phone".
When I am away from home they can't reach me. It's an incredible invention, if only they had this 25 years ago. Oh wait.:)
Same here. I stopped using cell phones in the late 90s and never felt better. Interesting enough, it has improved my work not using one.
I am not even a little frightened by terrorists. You should develop some fortitude and stop demanding that those of us equipt with a functioning pair hand over the maintenence of our sense of well being to the government.
Maybe you should tell that to my neighbor. Oh wait, you can't. He's dead from a Boeing 767 slamming into his office. Fortitude? I have a ton of it. I live so close to what was the WTC that FBI spent a week sweeping my street for evidence and dealt with daily National Guard checkpoints to make it into my home.
If you had a functioning pair, you wouldn't be scared that the Government was actively searching out terrorism because you are worried that RIAA is going to bust you for ripping CDs into MP3s. Glad you have your priorites straight. Your ability covert music from one format to another appears to be more important than lives of American citizens.
The main reason I don't carry a cell phone is that I never get a call like this, "Hey, I just wanted you to know that everything is running perfect. Thanks for the incredible job you are doing making all this stuff I don't understand work." All I get are people griping because this or that isn't working which usually it is, but they are too ignorant to figure it out -- power cords are confusing -- does it go in the wall or work better laying on the floor? The last thing I need is a cell phone implanted in my mouth so people at any hour of the day can piss me off with their problems or even worse, telemarketers!
No thanks! I want technology that seperates me from my fellow human beings. All this technology that tries to bring us together ends up biting us in the collective ass.
One is too many! Even one person not getting full rights until convicted in a court of law (fair and speedy public trial and so on) is too many!
One is too few. We are now learning that there are more "Americans" that are/were plotting with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to kill YOU.
The only crime mentioned in the Constitution of the United States is treason. That's how serious of a crime it is. It is a crime that strips you of your citizenship and labels you as a combatant of a foreign power. Since Al Qaeda is not a nation state, you are, under the Geneva Convention, an illegal combatant thus not afforded the rights even under that treaty much less the US Constitution. Do some reading on the subject in our nation's founding documents -- not right wing or left wing. It might help you sort out what is really going on and drown out the screams of chicken little leftist propagandists.
So, if you are truly worried about losing your rights, please stay away from Al Qaeda members. You will be fine.
I did name one, all they have to do is consider me a "terrorist" of any sort, and they do not need any warrants, etc. That my friend, is a HUGE one. And every politican who voted for it should be on the ned of a rope
The Government is not going to get away with calling you a terrorist unless you are involved in terrorist activity. We have an activist press corps in this country that is salivating for the opportunity to pounce on President Bush. If you were nabbed by the Government on false charges of terrorism, you would instantly become a millionaire and a media darling. As long as the right to free speech and the Press, it is virtually impossible for the Government to detain you without merit. The Government is not just saying these people are terrorists, they are giving proof.
Do you want me to name more? I could go on and on about privacy, or about the fedreal government becoming to strong and over stepping the limits that was set in place to preserve our natural rights.
Actually I would. Tell what you can't do today that was legal before 9-11-01. What right that you had, that you don't today. Not couldas, wouldas, shouldas, but something that has actually happened to you as a US Citizen.
What actually matters is whether the government accuses you of doing so. In which case they can quite happily deny you any of your rights, apparently.
That's why an attorney can petition the Courts with a writ of habeas corpus which is being done in the Padilla case by his court appointed attorney. He has been moved to a military base from prison because he has been called an illegal combatant. Judgeing by the small numbers of American that have had this happen to them, one, I think the Government has been very responsible with its powers.
Remember, you're in the habit of flying to terror sponsoring nations etc. How do we know? The government said so.
Simple evidence can prove you are not. Passport, airline records and even eyewitnesses. Like I mentioned earlier, Padilla does have a lawyer.
Don't be so paranoid. If you truly believe that United States is going to snatch you off the streets for your beliefs, its time to leave America. There is not point in living in a country that makes you fear the Government.
Well, lets see there is a recent act that got passed, the patriot act, that all they have to do is consider you a terrorist, and they don't need a warrent for anything. ..
So don't behave like a terrorist. Is that too much to ask from a fellow citizen? Please don't travel to terrorist supporting nations to gain information on radiological bombs so can explode one in a major population center in the US.
Like I asked, name one Civil Right you have lost. Not some theoretical situation. Give me some concrete loss of freedom beyond getting through an airport unmolested.
Are you in the habit of flying to terror sponsoring nations to discuss plans to build and detonate radiological bombs with members of the Al Qaeda leadership? If so, I hope you are stripped of your American citizenship like Padilla and treated as an unlawful combatant. But I doubt you would do something like that, so you have nothing to worry about.
I hear a lot of people complaining that their Civil Rights are being lost in this forum even a few losing sleep over it! Outside of being molested by an old lady with a metal detecting wand at the airport, I can't think of any civil rights I have lost since 9-11. Yet, there seems to be no end to people griping about their Civil Rights being taken away. Which is ironic since if they were, how could they bitch in the first place? Can someone list the rights we have lost?
The only people I can think of that have had their "Civil Rights violated" are illegal aliens with existing deportation orders from Al Qaeda based countries and a guy that looks like John Doe #2 who was planning to set off a radiological bomb after returning from the Middle East. People that do not deserve protection that an American Citizen is afforded in America. They are illegal combatants, they want you dead. They couldn't give a damn if you had Civil Rights in the first place. You are an American. Your country supports Israel. You live a decadent lifestyle. You are a legitimate target in their eyes and they don't follow the Geneva Convention.
As long as you are not a member of Al Qaeda or hanging out with Al Qaeda members at strip clubs and pilot training, you have nothing to worry about. The FBI, CIA and Homeland Security have more important things to do than tap your phone so they get the time and place of your next LAN party. Besides, you probably aren't important enough in the first place to warrant their attention.
Remember folks, we are in a war and the war zone is the United States. A war not against a nation state but a terrorist group that knows no borders. We are not going to win by making our law enforcement agencies toothless and blind.
Re:Perhaps OSS Zealots shouldn't piss off Blizzard
on
Warcraft III Gone Gold
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· Score: 2
Well put. Zealotry in the Linux and P2P communities almost make the Mac Zealots look like angels.
Apple is running some dedicated pages to Warcraft III which will be Blizzard's first game simultaneously shipped for Mac OS X, Mac OS 9, and Windows on the same CD. Sorry Linux guys, you are going to have to boot into Windows or MacOS 9. I can't remember the last time a major gaming company released the Mac version of a game the same time they released the Windows version.
P.S. What another boycott? Jeez! If I followed all of these boycotts, I wouldn't be able to turn on my computer. Sorry guys, Blizzard supporting Mac at the same level of Windows is more important to me than open source game servers.
Copying information is not and cannot be stealing. It can be illegal, it can be copyright violation, but it is simply not theft and doesn't necessary mean a loss to the "victim." This ridiculous assertion, that there is no essential difference between making an unauthorized copy of music that could be bought for $10,000 and stealing a $10,000 car, has been repeated here many times, and every time people waste effort pointing out how it's obviously wrong.
Stealing is stealing and morally wrong. While there maybe degrees of harm, the act still grows from the same evil, taking from others what is not yours. You may require this sort of moral rationalization to make yourself feel better for your actions but you are still doing wrong. Its called respect for other human beings. What else can you rationalize?
The moderation category "troll" at least gives you the credit of intentionally being obnoxious and trying to start an argument, rather than being so stupid you can't recognize the obvious illogic of your position.
If you want to argue that copyright violation is wrong, go right ahead. However, don't expect any more respect for asserting that copyright violation is stealing than if you claimed it was vandalism, treason, murder, or rape.
If saying "please don't steal" has become "intentionally being obnoxious" then our society has really started to crumble. The illogic of my position appears to be trying to tell a group of people that seem to feel they have the right to take from others what was not theirs is not a Good Thing. I never alluded to stealing other people's intellectual property to vandalism, treason, murder or rape. I am saying your appropriating someone else's property without just compensation is wrong and causes damage to consumers that engage in legal transactions with the property owners through higher prices and products that have copy protection schemes.
As for me being stupid for this position, the US Court system tends to agree with me, not you. If you think I am wrong, please challenge the music labels in court and we will see whose point prevails.
You're quite right. Now, explain how much Bertelsmann's bank balance drops if I download a bunch of data that a given application on a given OS might interpret as a "song" by Britney Spears. I want to know how much less money they have after I download that data, not how much more they might have gained if I had bought a license to obtain a copy of.
Theft is theft, no matter how much perfume you spray around it. You are taking property from Bertelsmann without engaging in an economic transaction that Bertelsmann has set up to distribute their product. Its theirs, not yours. You do not have the right to dictate their distribution while their property is still under copyright protection. That is arrogance.
Is it a penny? Is their bank balance one penny less if I download that data? No, it isn't. But, hey, that might be a rounding error, so what if I download it ten times, a hundred times, ten million times? Does their bank balance drop every time that I do that? Gosh, you know, it doesn't. How about that.
Their bank balance does grow from your theft. That is the point. You are taking their product without compensation. That is the financial loss, that is the theft. Britney Spears and Bertelsmann are not in the music business to give away the product for free.
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; Don't just assert it, argue it. Convince us that protecting Bertelsmann's profits (and indirectly that of their meat puppet, Britney Spears) is what the Constitution intends, or what copyright law is supposed to achieve.
What part of "exclusive right to their respective writings" don't you understand? By your interpretation of this, no one would want to engage in "writings and discoveries" as their would be no financial benefit to the activity. This nation was set up as a Capitalistic society not an altruistic hippy land as much as some want it to be. The founding fathers realized that to promote the arts and sciences, there must be an incentive for the producer thus protections were afforded to the creator. Britney and Bertelsmann have exclusive right to their music and the method of distribution, not you, while its under copyright protection.
Its amazing the lengths that people will go to justify intellectual property theft when it comes to music but jump up and down when the GPL is violated by Microsoft and other companies.
Copyright and patents are an attempt to dilute genuine physical property by making pseudo property out of patterns. But the truth is that you cannot create property by legislative fiat. Physical property is a natural right and inherent in the fact that matter has identity - you can't have your cake and eat it too. Trying to cram patterns into the definition of property just fucks up property and results in snooping, external audits and such like denials of ownership rights.
Then why would the founding fathers establish copyrights and patents from the onset of the founding of America? That would be not legislative fiat but constitutional establishment for the promotion of intellectual activity.
Music is tangible not virtual though it can be represeted in a virtual state. It can be written on paper and generally is before being changed into "patterns" as you describe it. With your mindset, the GPL-ed software is nothing more than patterns on a hard drive representing "pseudo property" that anyone can manipulate without regard for the content of the license. Thus making the license null and void.
What work or addition of extra value does a "label" actually do to the resultant CD at the end of the day?
Given that I believe the answer is "stuff-all", that music labels do nothing but own studios and know "contacts" who can push the "make millions of CDs" button, why is it folks at this point in the chain who are making *all* the money, sorry, noise?
Doesn't matter. The artist signs a contract. They should know better. Their lawyers should know better. If the labels were not valuable to the artists, they wouldn't associate with them in mass. No one is pointing a gun at the head of the muscian (outside of Shug Knight) and telling them to sign a contract. If a label is able to make millions off an artist that is stupid enough to sign a bad contract, more power to them.
Maybe I *am* all in favour of a direct-to-listener 'Net-based approach after all...
I am too. That is why I urge the artist to go it alone. If their music is good enough and generates a large enough fan base, they can make a killing getting rid of the label.
Anyone that thinks that appropriating another person's property without compensation or permission has no impact upon the victim is delusional even if that property is virtual/digital. Even if the lost is 1 penny, its still a loss, its still theft. Its not your place to tell the industry that "theft of your product is actually beneficial to you, so we are going to steal from you until the banks can't hold all your money". Its intellectual malpractice to justify these actions and we have read it all on this forum.
My favorite specious argument is that the artists don't get money from their recordings. Too bad. Let me cry them a river while they are passed out on the Green Room floor with a needle in their arm. They should have signed a better contract with the record companies or been entrepreneurial enough to distribute the music themselves. However, P. Diddy seems to be up to his eardrums in Christal. Eminem still has enough cash on hand to bust off caps like its the 4th of July outside his recording studio.
All in all, these arguments supporting theft of music are smoke screens to justify boorish behavior by people that are irresponsible and do not want to respect other's property. File sharing has just brought these people out from under the rock they hid before P2P became king -- I exclude the 5 of you that use P2P networks to gain digital copies of your Frampton "Comes Alive!" LP which you bought in middle school.
Its very simple. If you didn't buy it and you were not given the right to use by the copyright holder, its not yours to use and enjoy on your hard drive. Grow up, get a job and purchase your music so I don't have to deal with poorly planned copy protection schemes that cause my Mac to choke on Celine Dion CDs my fiancee forces me to listen too. If you don't like the method of distribution, contact the business and explain yourself. A smart business that receives feedback from enough customers will modify its business plan to compensate for the demand. If they don't, start up a Geocities web page and bitch -- just don't STEAL!
Maybe Microsoft should just start appropriating GPL-ed code and justify it by saying that they wouldn't have purchased the code in the first place or the price of compliance with the GPL is just too high. That's about the same mentality. Property is to be respected and I surprised that someone from the Cato Institute saying otherwise. They aren't supposed to be communists with their whole property is theft concept.
Slashdot Mirror
For the rich guys and for the poor guys. As a bonus, you don't have to hang your in shame saying you run a "Unix-like" operating system. With these, you get the real thing...
I really thought it was. If I wanted to discuss politics rather than technology, I would head over to the many extreme political discussion sites. Cheap pot shots on political leaders is best suited for those forums. Whether you are talking about the Impeached One or Chimpy.
If you're looking for Bible-belt sensibilities you're at the wrong site, mister.
I am a Catholic living in NYC...the complete opposite of a Baptist in Georgia. "We got them thespians livin' up har!".
The Bush administration is pursuing the Microsoft case much less strenuously than the Clinton administration did. This is fact.
So? There are some of us that think that breaking up one monopoly to create two or three other monopolies isn't going to solve the problem. Pretty much the solution being bounced around during the Clinton years. I am for competition in the marketplace. I use Mac OS X because of that -- outside the fact its better than Windows. Microsoft can be beat easily by better products and its happening. Apache creams IIS. I am sure you can come up with other product match ups.
The Bush administration accepted substantial donations from Microsoft. This is fact. Chrisd has a right to believe the administration was "bought" by Microsoft whether it's fact or not.
And Al Gore tooled around on Microsoft's campus and took donations as well and according to posters in this forum, more than Bush took in. What a news flash, a company betting on both teams. If Chrisd thinks that a single company can buy a Republican President in front of a liberal media, he's welcome to make the silly claim...just try to put it in the forum instead of the news summary. Its such a waste of time in the summary to divert the story from the real thrust.
Or I'm sorry, should we delete the story because "toupsie" disagrees????
Well if I were the owner of Slashdot, I would run things different. Guess what, I ain't and don't pretend too. I have no problem with the story. Its perfect for this forum, technology and the law. But throwing out hyperbole in the story brief is not necessary, it will come from people just like you. That's what's great about Slashdot as a forum. You throw out the story, don't taint it and let everyone else color the information then the moderators screw it up or enhance it.
Would you like us to file the tits off the Statue of Liberty while we're at it or do we have your permission to let them stay?
I guess is this lame attack on Attorney General John Ashcroft transferred on me. Ha ha! Let me give you a ticket on the political clue train. The fact that John Ashcroft has a problem with a nude statue behind him is not bizarre. When did you see Janet Reno stand in front of a statue of a nude man with a thick, flaccid, exposed "chubby" and conduct a news conference? Hillary Clinton has never stood in front of such of a statue nor can I recount a time where I have observed a female politician or major government employee do such a thing. The man has a restrained sense of public decorum when it comes to nudity. So do many women. In this day and age of in your face hypersexuality bombarded at us from the media and previous politicians, its nice to see a member of our Government acting like someone beyond a high school level of sexual maturity.
Uh, excuse me? What does President George W. Bush have to with RAMBUS much less the Microsoft case from this link? President Bush appointed the first African American, Charles James, to head the antitrust division of the Justice Department. Assistant Attorney General Charles James never has said that Microsoft should get away scott free, he just disagrees with breaking up Microsoft into two monopolies from one. His solution is to penalize Microsoft and force them to adopt different business practices that would remove barriers to competition from outside companies on their operating system.
There is no need for these sort of comments on Slashdot story briefs. AAG Charles James has a long history of serving this country through its court system and to have a partisan sniper misrepresent his opinion in such a blatant fashion is repugnant. I don't know if its racism or just pure hatred towards the current administration that would allow this sort of misrepresentation to be published. It would be nice if Slashdot editors would review these submissions before they are posted and depolitise them.
It would be a nice change! :)
Gee, I didn't know that still bothered you as an adult. I am really sorry I scarred you life. But I figured you were able to get that toilet bowl cleaner off your face easy when we gave you that "Whirlie" so you really didn't mind. I didn't know it would lead to you picking on Walmart shoppers.
Ditto! I do the exact same thing. And here I was thinking I was the only person doing this. There are just too people out there and too few of me to deal with them. :)
Same here. I stopped using cell phones in the late 90s and never felt better. Interesting enough, it has improved my work not using one.
Maybe you should tell that to my neighbor. Oh wait, you can't. He's dead from a Boeing 767 slamming into his office. Fortitude? I have a ton of it. I live so close to what was the WTC that FBI spent a week sweeping my street for evidence and dealt with daily National Guard checkpoints to make it into my home.
If you had a functioning pair, you wouldn't be scared that the Government was actively searching out terrorism because you are worried that RIAA is going to bust you for ripping CDs into MP3s. Glad you have your priorites straight. Your ability covert music from one format to another appears to be more important than lives of American citizens.
No thanks! I want technology that seperates me from my fellow human beings. All this technology that tries to bring us together ends up biting us in the collective ass.
One is too few. We are now learning that there are more "Americans" that are/were plotting with Al Qaeda in Afghanistan to kill YOU . The only crime mentioned in the Constitution of the United States is treason. That's how serious of a crime it is. It is a crime that strips you of your citizenship and labels you as a combatant of a foreign power. Since Al Qaeda is not a nation state, you are, under the Geneva Convention, an illegal combatant thus not afforded the rights even under that treaty much less the US Constitution. Do some reading on the subject in our nation's founding documents -- not right wing or left wing. It might help you sort out what is really going on and drown out the screams of chicken little leftist propagandists.
So, if you are truly worried about losing your rights, please stay away from Al Qaeda members. You will be fine.
Are you scared of the US Government? I'm not. It pisses me off, it puzzles me and drives me nuts at times but I do not fear it.
The Government is not going to get away with calling you a terrorist unless you are involved in terrorist activity. We have an activist press corps in this country that is salivating for the opportunity to pounce on President Bush. If you were nabbed by the Government on false charges of terrorism, you would instantly become a millionaire and a media darling. As long as the right to free speech and the Press, it is virtually impossible for the Government to detain you without merit. The Government is not just saying these people are terrorists, they are giving proof.
Do you want me to name more? I could go on and on about privacy, or about the fedreal government becoming to strong and over stepping the limits that was set in place to preserve our natural rights.
Actually I would. Tell what you can't do today that was legal before 9-11-01. What right that you had, that you don't today. Not couldas, wouldas, shouldas, but something that has actually happened to you as a US Citizen.
That's why an attorney can petition the Courts with a writ of habeas corpus which is being done in the Padilla case by his court appointed attorney. He has been moved to a military base from prison because he has been called an illegal combatant. Judgeing by the small numbers of American that have had this happen to them, one, I think the Government has been very responsible with its powers.
Remember, you're in the habit of flying to terror sponsoring nations etc. How do we know? The government said so.
Simple evidence can prove you are not. Passport, airline records and even eyewitnesses. Like I mentioned earlier, Padilla does have a lawyer. Don't be so paranoid. If you truly believe that United States is going to snatch you off the streets for your beliefs, its time to leave America. There is not point in living in a country that makes you fear the Government.
So don't behave like a terrorist. Is that too much to ask from a fellow citizen? Please don't travel to terrorist supporting nations to gain information on radiological bombs so can explode one in a major population center in the US.
Like I asked, name one Civil Right you have lost. Not some theoretical situation. Give me some concrete loss of freedom beyond getting through an airport unmolested.
Are you in the habit of flying to terror sponsoring nations to discuss plans to build and detonate radiological bombs with members of the Al Qaeda leadership? If so, I hope you are stripped of your American citizenship like Padilla and treated as an unlawful combatant. But I doubt you would do something like that, so you have nothing to worry about.
The only people I can think of that have had their "Civil Rights violated" are illegal aliens with existing deportation orders from Al Qaeda based countries and a guy that looks like John Doe #2 who was planning to set off a radiological bomb after returning from the Middle East. People that do not deserve protection that an American Citizen is afforded in America. They are illegal combatants, they want you dead. They couldn't give a damn if you had Civil Rights in the first place. You are an American. Your country supports Israel. You live a decadent lifestyle. You are a legitimate target in their eyes and they don't follow the Geneva Convention.
As long as you are not a member of Al Qaeda or hanging out with Al Qaeda members at strip clubs and pilot training, you have nothing to worry about. The FBI, CIA and Homeland Security have more important things to do than tap your phone so they get the time and place of your next LAN party. Besides, you probably aren't important enough in the first place to warrant their attention.
Remember folks, we are in a war and the war zone is the United States. A war not against a nation state but a terrorist group that knows no borders. We are not going to win by making our law enforcement agencies toothless and blind.
Well put. Zealotry in the Linux and P2P communities almost make the Mac Zealots look like angels.
Good one!
Looks like its getting better every day being a MacOS X user! Go UNIX!
P.S. What another boycott? Jeez! If I followed all of these boycotts, I wouldn't be able to turn on my computer. Sorry guys, Blizzard supporting Mac at the same level of Windows is more important to me than open source game servers.
Stealing is stealing and morally wrong. While there maybe degrees of harm, the act still grows from the same evil, taking from others what is not yours. You may require this sort of moral rationalization to make yourself feel better for your actions but you are still doing wrong. Its called respect for other human beings. What else can you rationalize?
The moderation category "troll" at least gives you the credit of intentionally being obnoxious and trying to start an argument, rather than being so stupid you can't recognize the obvious illogic of your position. If you want to argue that copyright violation is wrong, go right ahead. However, don't expect any more respect for asserting that copyright violation is stealing than if you claimed it was vandalism, treason, murder, or rape.
If saying "please don't steal" has become "intentionally being obnoxious" then our society has really started to crumble. The illogic of my position appears to be trying to tell a group of people that seem to feel they have the right to take from others what was not theirs is not a Good Thing. I never alluded to stealing other people's intellectual property to vandalism, treason, murder or rape. I am saying your appropriating someone else's property without just compensation is wrong and causes damage to consumers that engage in legal transactions with the property owners through higher prices and products that have copy protection schemes.
As for me being stupid for this position, the US Court system tends to agree with me, not you. If you think I am wrong, please challenge the music labels in court and we will see whose point prevails.
Theft is theft, no matter how much perfume you spray around it. You are taking property from Bertelsmann without engaging in an economic transaction that Bertelsmann has set up to distribute their product. Its theirs, not yours. You do not have the right to dictate their distribution while their property is still under copyright protection. That is arrogance.
Is it a penny? Is their bank balance one penny less if I download that data? No, it isn't. But, hey, that might be a rounding error, so what if I download it ten times, a hundred times, ten million times? Does their bank balance drop every time that I do that? Gosh, you know, it doesn't. How about that.
Their bank balance does grow from your theft. That is the point. You are taking their product without compensation. That is the financial loss, that is the theft. Britney Spears and Bertelsmann are not in the music business to give away the product for free.
To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries; Don't just assert it, argue it. Convince us that protecting Bertelsmann's profits (and indirectly that of their meat puppet, Britney Spears) is what the Constitution intends, or what copyright law is supposed to achieve.
What part of "exclusive right to their respective writings" don't you understand? By your interpretation of this, no one would want to engage in "writings and discoveries" as their would be no financial benefit to the activity. This nation was set up as a Capitalistic society not an altruistic hippy land as much as some want it to be. The founding fathers realized that to promote the arts and sciences, there must be an incentive for the producer thus protections were afforded to the creator. Britney and Bertelsmann have exclusive right to their music and the method of distribution, not you, while its under copyright protection.
Its amazing the lengths that people will go to justify intellectual property theft when it comes to music but jump up and down when the GPL is violated by Microsoft and other companies.
Then why would the founding fathers establish copyrights and patents from the onset of the founding of America? That would be not legislative fiat but constitutional establishment for the promotion of intellectual activity.
Music is tangible not virtual though it can be represeted in a virtual state. It can be written on paper and generally is before being changed into "patterns" as you describe it. With your mindset, the GPL-ed software is nothing more than patterns on a hard drive representing "pseudo property" that anyone can manipulate without regard for the content of the license. Thus making the license null and void.
Doesn't matter. The artist signs a contract. They should know better. Their lawyers should know better. If the labels were not valuable to the artists, they wouldn't associate with them in mass. No one is pointing a gun at the head of the muscian (outside of Shug Knight) and telling them to sign a contract. If a label is able to make millions off an artist that is stupid enough to sign a bad contract, more power to them.
Maybe I *am* all in favour of a direct-to-listener 'Net-based approach after all...
I am too. That is why I urge the artist to go it alone. If their music is good enough and generates a large enough fan base, they can make a killing getting rid of the label.
My favorite specious argument is that the artists don't get money from their recordings. Too bad. Let me cry them a river while they are passed out on the Green Room floor with a needle in their arm. They should have signed a better contract with the record companies or been entrepreneurial enough to distribute the music themselves. However, P. Diddy seems to be up to his eardrums in Christal. Eminem still has enough cash on hand to bust off caps like its the 4th of July outside his recording studio.
All in all, these arguments supporting theft of music are smoke screens to justify boorish behavior by people that are irresponsible and do not want to respect other's property. File sharing has just brought these people out from under the rock they hid before P2P became king -- I exclude the 5 of you that use P2P networks to gain digital copies of your Frampton "Comes Alive!" LP which you bought in middle school.
Its very simple. If you didn't buy it and you were not given the right to use by the copyright holder, its not yours to use and enjoy on your hard drive. Grow up, get a job and purchase your music so I don't have to deal with poorly planned copy protection schemes that cause my Mac to choke on Celine Dion CDs my fiancee forces me to listen too. If you don't like the method of distribution, contact the business and explain yourself. A smart business that receives feedback from enough customers will modify its business plan to compensate for the demand. If they don't, start up a Geocities web page and bitch -- just don't STEAL!
Maybe Microsoft should just start appropriating GPL-ed code and justify it by saying that they wouldn't have purchased the code in the first place or the price of compliance with the GPL is just too high. That's about the same mentality. Property is to be respected and I surprised that someone from the Cato Institute saying otherwise. They aren't supposed to be communists with their whole property is theft concept.